It's one of my favourite manga. I bought three volumes last year, loved them and was delighted to find more during this year's Japan visit. Don't expect any happy endings, though. It's a black comedy gorefest as Same (two short syllables, like "Sam met" with no final "T") wrecks everything, goes on grotesque killing sprees and finds new ways to massacre entire cities. If you have a common enemy, he's amazing. If Same takes against someone, he absolutely will not stop until this enemy (and indeed everyone else in sight) has been reduced to a red smear.

The problem is what he'll do afterwards, when you think it's all over.

This is funny because of his double act with Shiromi. Theoretically, she's his boss. She's an endlessly optimistic, lovable manga protagonist, although not the brightest. They love each other. (Training herself to achieve this took Shiromi a lot of hard work, mind you.) Shiromi wants to do good and save the world. She scolds her homicidal friend when he doesn't behave, i.e. frequently. What makes this manga wonderful is the contrast between Shiromi's sunny good nature and Same's horrifying atrocities... plus, of course, Same's cute cartoon form. He can switch. He might look cute and adorable (no, really) or like your ultimate nightmare from hell. These books made me laugh with all this imagery and I kept showing pages to my children.

Same has the abilities of every shark from every silly B-movie ever made. These three volumes feature: (a) Ancient Egypt and the unkillable King Scorpion, (b) Zombie Shark mode, which is even more horrific than it sounds, (c) Flying Mecha-Shark with missiles and machine guns, plus a big button saying "definitely absolutely do not press this button", (d) some seriously impressive bad guys, (e) innocuous nipple-less fanservice in volume 6. Shiromi enters an onsen and spends the rest of the volume wearing a towel.

It's hilarious and awesome. I'm sure the manga's mean-spirited formula could get old if you read too many volumes (an endless loop of horrifying megadeath endings), but this three-volumes-a-year pattern I've stumbled on is perfect.

"How strange! The water in this onsen is red!"

"You're such an idiot, Shiromi. It must be rust from the iron level in the water!"

HINT: no, it's not.